This document discusses and compares bottled water and tap water. It covers their production processes, regulations, environmental impacts, and societal effects. Bottled water comes from municipal water supplies or private groundwater sources, is packaged in plastic bottles, and transported long distances. Tap water comes from groundwater or surface water through public water systems. Bottled water has higher environmental impacts from plastic production and transportation compared to tap water. There are also concerns about overextraction of groundwater sources for bottled water.

1. Bottled and Tap Water
ESA 324 - Robert Drew, Zack Fealk & Sruthi Naraharisetti

2. Production
Processes

3. History of Bottled Water
● The Start: Europe
during late 1700s
● 1767: Jackson's
spa in Boston
● Reason for early
interest in "mineral
water" and "spring
water"

4. Where your water comes from
and how it gets to you
Bottled Water
Tap Water ● Public system:
● Public system: ○ Estimated 25%
○ Groundwater and (consumed in US)
Surface water from Municipal Water
● Private system: Supply
○ Wells ● Private system:
○ No Federal ○ Wells, Springs,
Artesian wells, etc
Regulations
● Transportation ○ No Federal
Regulations
○ Pressure pumping ● Plastic Processing
● Transportation

5. Regulations
● Tap Water: Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA)
○ Safe Drinking Water Act in 1974
○ Consumer Confidence Reports (CCR)
● Bottled Water: Food and Drug Administration
(FDA)
○ Current Good Manufacturing Practices
(CGMPs)
○ Quality Standards
○ Standards of Identity (Labeling Regulations)
● All bottled water sold in the US (whether
imported or domestic) must meet all of the same
regulations.

6. Manufacturing Plastic Bottles
● “Typically, 90 percent or more of the cost paid by
bottled water consumers goes to things other than the
water itself-such as bottling, packaging, shipping,
marketing, retailing, other expenses” (NRDC).
● Water that goes
into the
manufacturing
● PET (polyethylene
terephthalate)
Plastic

7. Environmental
Impacts

8. Impacts From Materials and
Production
● Americans drink more bottled water than any other nation,
purchasing an impressive 29 billion bottles every year.
● Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the plastic used in the the
bottles, is derived from crude oil.
● Making bottles to meet Americans’ demand for bottled water
requires more than 17 million barrels of oil annually, enough to
fuel more than 1 million U.S. cars for a year.

9. Concentrated Water Extraction
● Heavy extraction leads to a lowering of the water table,
and in some extreme cases a near complete draining of
the water body being harvested.
● Impacts the hydrology of the water system
● These effects are often permanent as the water being
extracted is shipped away from the source and are
returned as wastewater to an altogether different water
system, and as such these aquifers and water bodies
being harvested are never replenished as they naturally
would.

10. Transportation of Bottled Water
● Fiji shipped 18 million gallons of bottled water to California,
releasing about 2,500 tons of transportation-related pollution.
● Western Europe's shipment of bottled water to New York City
that year released 3,800 tons of pollution.
● Interview with Ice Mountain
revealed:
○ Their water is commuted by truck
or pipeline from natural springs in
the states of Michigan,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Maine,
and Tennessee
○ source of their distilled water
products to be that of city or well
water, which is then shipped or
piped to their distributors around
the nation.

11. Disposal of Spent Bottles
● About 75% of water bottles are thrown in the trash, rather than recycled.
● only about 13 percent end up in the recycling stream where they are turned
into products like fleece clothing, carpeting, decking, playground
equipment and new containers and bottles.
● In 2005, approximately 2 million tons of water bottles ended up in U.S.
landfills, according to the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
● Buried water bottles can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade.
● Incinerating these PET plastics releases toxic byproducts, such as ash
containing heavy metals into the atmosphere

12. Societal
Impacts

13. Shifting Values
Public Good Private Good
● use of water for all ● developed, used, traded
people and sold for economic
● unnecessary productivity and
boundaries financial gain
● over regulated ● $$ gained from finite
● heavy government resource
influence ● shipped away from
● Heavily mandated by watershed
EPA ● Manufacturer's
● Uniform guidelines of responsibility from
testing FFDCA [Federal Food, Drug, and
Cosmetic Act]

14. Bottled Water Consumption

15. Bottled Water Suppliers

16. Marketing & Packaging
● Consumers are very faithful to a brand
● Paying for artistic appeal of logo and shape
● Municipalities still struggle to advertise
● A better or healthier alternative to tap
○ advertising invisible attributes
● High use of plastics

18. Plastics
PET
Polyethylene
> PVC
Polyvinyl
Terephthalate Chloride
● Lighter / More malleable and transparent
● Re-manufactured in many other products
● If burnt doesn't release chlorine into atmosphere
● Company awareness of social and environmental
● 1.5 million tons of plastic annually
● Still a waste / goes to tap

19. Time to Educate
● Perceived idea of availability
● Infrastructure established / still need upkeep
● BW consumption increased 7% each year
● Facilities established in econ. deprived areas
● Community led campaigns for both halting
the use of BW and educating the public of
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